Chapter 15: Sharing information
"Firstly let's discuss the captured Titans in Trost, as a scientist I first conduct the standard check lists off test we do on all captured Titans; first was an attempt at communicating with them, I ask them if they're in pain, if they have a name, how are they feeling etc." explained Hange "However, just as with previous subjects we could not communicate with them, instead any attempt I made to get closer to them resulted in their attempt to devour me."
"You should really put a safety line around them or something." Said Edward
"Oh we do, my assistant Moblit is always telling me 'Hange, stay behind the line' 'Hange stop being so reckless' 'Hange, you want to get your head chopped off?' she sighed "he means well"
The three of them stared at Hange looking perplexed at what she just said.
"Anyways, spending time around them in such close proximity helped me cope with the tediousness of day to day task, I had even named them; Sonny the four meter Titan and Bean the seven meter Titan; I had named after the leaders of tribe of cannibals famous in human history, the next experiment was sunlight deprivation where we placed them in large tents and cut off their assess to sunlight; you see Titans are most active in day than in the night, this is where the captured Titans showed individual differences; Sonny had showed signs of energy loss and as a result became sluggish, while Bean had far more lively for a straight three hours. The Titans don't require food or water, they have vocal cords but yet don't communicate and don't require the need to breathe and the only thing their bodies metabolize into energy is sunlight."
"Interesting" commented Alphonse "Have you tried cutting them off from sunlight completely?"
"I would, however if I did that then I'd run the risk of killing them." replied Hange "Then all our work would have been for naught." There was a few seconds of silence before she suddenly sprung from her chair standing and yelled "Physical pain was the next step, I just had to know whether they experienced pain like us! Those poor babies! I had to hurt them! Stuck a large sharp pole into them!"
Ed, Al and Eren were startled by her sudden outburst and tensed up as if ready for the moment she pounced of them. Hange then sat down again, recomposing herself
"I just had to find out whether they had other weaknesses beside the nape, but the experience was painful." She said this time in a calm and reserved manner "What I did notice was that while Sonny didn't seem to react to pain as Sonny did, instead he didn't show anything like a reaction to pain, all he can do is try to bite me."
"Squad Leader, with all due respect, how can you talk about the Titans this way?" asked Eren in annoyed confusion "They're humanity's greatest enemy; they've driven us to the brink of extinction and yet you act cheerful when talking about them and upset when they're hurt."
"You are right…" replied Hange "I seen many of my comrades meet their end in the jaws of a Titan, when I first became a Scout I fought them out of nothing but bitter hatred and then one day I kicked the head of a three meter Titan and I was shocked to feel that it was also as light as a feather." The three of them gasped at the revelation, Alphonse recalled the moment he saw one of those monsters crush one of the Cadets within its own hand "Something like that just seems almost impossible, a complete contradiction in the laws of reality itself and that's when I noticed something, despite the mass and density of their body a severed limb would be as light as tree bark, I've read that your Titan forms out of thin air, what I think is that there's a stark difference between what we can observe and what is really going on." She then poured three cups of tea and handed it to the three of them. "For years the foundation of our strategy has been based on nothing but hatred and spite for the enemy, I'm trying to look at this from another angle even if it ends up being useless…but still… nothing ventured, nothing gained."
"So, Elrics, I've heard mixed things about your Alchemic abilities; care to enlighten me?" asked Hange curiously "Full disclosure, Commander Erwin had briefed me on everything you boys spoke about in the conversation you had with him." She took out what looked to be a small note book and a pencil.
"Well Alchemy is the science of deconstructing and reconstructing matter into different shapes, sizes and material altogether" explained Alphonse "There's a rule in Alchemy called Equivalent Exchange; meaning that in order to create something than something else of equal value must be lost, you can't create or destroy the energy and matter of substances, and something can't just come from nothing there has to be a source and on top of that in order to transmute material into different others they'd need to have a similar atomic make-up and properties of the initial material, trying to bypass this rule can result in what's called a Rebound where the balance is thrown which can…end badly"
"Which is why when Eren managed to create a Titan out of thin air we were shocked, it went against the laws of conversion of mass" said Ed "It went against the very laws of science and Alchemy." There was only one other thing that could produce anything from nothing…
"Hmmm" said Hange interested "the Cadets we interviewed also touched on something like this; they said that you, Ed, threaten Eren and asked him whether he was a 'homunculus', Cadet Mina said the you've claimed to have fought them in your world, and Alphonse you mentioned something about a 'philosopher stone', care to elaborate on these?" she asked
"They're artificial humans with the ability to regenerate injuries and had their own unique abilities" stated Alphonse "forming their arm into a spear, forming a carbon-fiber layer around their body and an eye which allowed them to see a any weakness or opening against an opponent, to name a few, they're made through injecting a philosopher stone into them."
"Those guys had it in for humans on our world, even tried to kill off fifty million people overnight" said Ed, Hange and Eren gasped fifty million people? that's more than fifty times the amount people that live in the Walls almost killed "We managed to stop them thankfully, it led to a whole regime change in the end.
"Wait!" yelled Eren "You're saying that there were people who were working with them to kill fifty million people?"
"Yeah, it was mostly the people at the top, the military elites and what not." replied Ed "Though the leader of the country at the time was a homunculus also, until he was killed during the coup."
"Damn... I couldn't imagine people doing something like that here, working with the Titans, we may have those Wall Cultists but even they aren't conspiring with the Titans." commented Eren
"And what about this 'philosopher stone'?" asked Hange "how can someone inject a stone into a person?"
"Its not exactly a stone, it can take different forms, it's just that a stone is the most common" said Alphonse "its the only thing that allows an alchemist to by-pass equivalent exchange."
"Something like that would in invaluable to you two" commented Hange " If we could get our hands on something like that then it could be the greatest solution to sealing up the breach." Both Ed and Alphonse shuddered at the thought of using a philosopher stone knowing the nature of it, Hange and Eren noticed their discomfort.
"Look..." said Ed "even if you had something like that Al and I wouldn't use it; the nature of that thing is just evil... believe me when I say that its more trouble and suffering than it's worth, only a monster would try to create one and that was just what the homunculus were"
"Alright then" replied Hange in an understanding tone "I won't force you to do anything involving Alchemy; you two are the experts on that field" she assured them "moving on, It said in Rico's report that you couldn't "transmute" the wall to seal the breach, you said something about understanding the atomic structure and yelled "What is this wall made out of" to Rico"
"Yeah, to perform Alchemy you need an understand of the atomic structure of the material your working so if I wanted to transmute this table into something else I'd need to know the atomic structure and elements like Hydrogen, Calcium, Oxygen etc that make up the wood."
"And you would need to know this at a moment's notice if you were to use Alchemy in a fight" said Eren "Sounds complicated."
"It is, but when you put in hours of study and work you get the hang of it eventually" said Alphonse "Though my brother and I have been doing this since we were eight years old."
"Interesting" remarked Hange "I'm assuming you two believed the wall to be made of bricks and cement and were using that knowledge to try and perform Alchemy on it."
"Yeah, that's right." Responded Ed, taking a sip of tea "Do you happen to know what the wall is made out of?" asked Ed
"No, just like you boys I'd assume the Wall was constructed out of normal building material, but this an interesting development, I'll need to get a hold of a sample of the wall from Trost and examine it, now back onto the topic; do other Alchemists specialise in certain fields or is it more general and what's with the clapping, do all Alchemists do it?"
"Well both" said Alphonse "You could get Alchemist who good at working with all kinds of material on top of having a specialty, like my brother and I; we work with almost just about anything but for a time we use to mainly work with metals, or you could get people who specialise in a certain fields, A guy we knew specialized in flame Alchemy and on the subject of clapping our hands to perform transmutation only a handful of people can do that, everyone else has to use something called a transmutation circle with different runes for different elements." He said, Hange gave him the note book and Alphonse drew an example of a transmutation circle "These allow the flow and release of energy to manipulate different substances."
"Fascinating…" said Hange as she examined the transmutation circle drawn by Alphonse
"So is that why they called you Fullmetal?" asked Eren "It wasn't because of your metal leg and arm before you got it back?"
"No, that was part of the reason why." Responded Ed "The other reason was because I was very hot headed at the time."
"At the time?" slyly questioned Alphonse, Ed shot an annoyed glare in his direction
"Edward, If you don't mind I'd like to examine your metal leg" asked Hange "my hope is that we'd be able to replicate it and produce our own version for soldiers who'd lost limbs to the Titans, now of course I won't take it apart completely, Moblit and I will examine a certain piece and only when we feel confident about our understanding of it will we move onto another piece and you'll need people who are familiar with your metal leg if you'd need it repaired; think of this as a zero-sum game"
Ed thought about this proposal for a second, he thought about how Winry would be angry and upset that someone else had been tinkering with the Automail she designed for him and if they were to do something wrong, then he'd be screwed, but she was right, there wasn't a single person on this earth who could work on his Automail and if the ODM gear was anything to go by they wouldn't be completely in the dark about handling complex machinery and if it went to producing some version of Automail in this world to help people than it seemed like a risk worth taking.
"Yeah sure, you can examine my Automail leg." Ed replied
"Wunderbar!" she exclaimed "I'll discuss a timetable with Levi on routine examinations; being able to examine tech like this could spark a technological revolution. Now one more thing I'd like to know; what is this "Truth" or God as you put it, Alphonse if you don't mind drawing an image of it" she handed Alphonse the book and pencil again
They were both silent for a few seconds "Honestly, everything we know about it we already told Commander Erwin, he regulates people's ability to perform Alchemy and punishes those who try to play God" Ed instinctively grips his Automail leg "we don't know if it created our world or this world but whatever it is, its powerful and one other thing is…It knows everything about anyone." Finished Ed as Alphonse handed her back the book, she looked at the page to see the outline of what looked like a child except the only detail was its huge grin standing next to a large double doors with what looked to be a tree on it.
Ed yawned, he took his pocket watch from his pocket and checked the time; it was twelve o'clock at night. "Hange, we'd love to continue talking but Al and I have a test with Captain Levi tomorrow so we'd better get some sleep."
"Squad Leader, I should leave too, we can talk more in the morning." Said Eren
"Sure thing boys" replied Hange with a smile "Ed and Alphonse, good luck with your altitude test tomorrow."
Ed, Alphonse and Eren left the mess hall leaving Hange alone, she turned back to her notebook, read over her notes and stared at the crudely drawn image of the Truth, even as a drawing there was something deeply unsettling about it.
Could this be it, the thing that we've been missing? Hange thought to herself what are you?
"Hey!" yelled Levi as he ripped the sheets from their beds "you two out of bed, put on your cloaks and head for the stable, now." Ed and Al jumped out of bed and quickly placed on their green cloaks, following Levi to the stables, there they found Eren, the rest of Levi squad, another person with the Scout Regiment symbol on their jacket and Hange who'd looked as if she had been shaken to her core.
"What going on-" asked Alphonse but was cut off by Levi
"Get on a horse, we're heading for Trost, someone's killed the captured Titans." They both gasped and quickly they mounted their horses and the group of them rode off south for Trost at full speed, it took maybe a few hours to reach the city inner gate "Hoods up, boys." Ordered Levi as they entered the city, Ed looked around it was clear that reconstruction was underway, but a lot of the damage and destruction that scarred the city still remained, they arrived at the scene; it was an enclosed area near the military HQ, the area was crowded with soldiers of the Garrison. Hange jumped off her horse, the other guy was quick to follow, Ed and Al assumed that must be Moblit, her assistant. Levi, his squad, Eren and the Elrics dismounted their horses and made their way to the enclosed area.
"You two stand at the entrance." Ordered Levi "Eren and the rest of you, you're with me." Both Edward and Alphonse stood just outside the entrance while the rest of them made their way through the crowd. They watched Hange through the gaps in the crowd; she fell down to her knees as if she been defeated and let out loud cries of anguish over the deaths of her captured Titans."
"No!" she cried "My poor babies!" Ed watched her, a bit perplexed at her reaction; he had known that the Titans were important to her for the research and that she may have had a kind of emotional bond to them, but this felt a bit over the top.
"Poor Hange…" said Alphonse empathetic about Hange's sadden state.
Ed kept his eye on Eren and Commander Erwin who looked to be discussing something with each other, Erwin bending down as if to whisper something to Eren. What the hell are they talking about? Wondered Ed, Suddenly Erwin turned to face them and began to walk towards them with Captain Levi, catching both Ed and Alphonse's attention
"Commander Erwin…" said Alphonse as he clumsily saluted him
"Tell me Elrics" he said in a tone which was both hushed yet not lacking in authority "What do you see here? Who do you think the real enemy is?"
"The real enemy?" asked Edward confused and then he remembered; what the Truth said to them
Struggle against a powerful force they do not yet fully understand but who seeks to annihilate them
"Before the Truth sent us here it told us, you were fighting an enemy do did not fully understand" said Ed "the real enemy isn't just the Titans outside these walls, is it?" asked Ed "Someone is working for them and I'm willing to bet they're like Eren."
There was a few seconds of intense silence and then Erwin gave a sly smiled to them "Whatever this Truth fellow is looks like it gave you a cryptic briefing, but you still manage to figure it out." His facial expression then became serious "Come, there is much to discuss." The group of four entered the Military HQ and walked up towards Erwin's office
"I want you both to know that once you step in, there is no going back, anything said here is between us, you understand?" both of them nodded in response, they entered into Erwin's office, Levi closed the door behind them and leaned against it, while Ed, Alphonse and Erwin sat at the desk
"We have reason to suspect there are enemy spies in the Southern division of the 104th Cadet corps, hiding in plain sight and we plan on finding out just who they are" said Erwin
"Do you have a list of possible suspects?" asked Alphonse
"No, not yet but I intent to narrow down the search using the Cadets ceremony tomorrow night and I know just how I'm going to do it; you see we've deduced that the enemy shifters are almost likely to be within the ranks of the southern division of the 104th Cadet Corps, the same one as Eren Yeager and the ones who were in Trost that day, once the Colossal Titan had struck the Armoured Titan should have attacked not long after that, instead it never showed up its as if something happened that caused them to break from their attack."
"Eren showing up..." said Alphonse, finishing Erwin's thought "When Eren revealed himself they must have made a change of plan."
"Exactly" said Erwin with a small smile on his face, he then took out a map of the Walls "The recon mission to track Titan movements in the east and detect a possible attack on Karanes, the next likely Titan target, is nothing more than a ruse the real purpose is to lure them into trap using Eren as bait." Both Ed and Alphonse gasped "This is where you boys will come in; it's been observed that using your alchemic abilities you are able to either incapacitate or kill Titans, I want you to incapacitate the enemy and from there the rest of us will capture the other shifter."
"If you don't mind me asking" said Ed "But if seems like you planned on us knowing the answer to that question, what if we didn't. What would you of done then?"
"I already had a plan in place before I'd asked you two that question; however since you did know the answer, my original plan has become one of other contingency plans, with you two we can now plan a scenario where we use your abilities to our advantage and lowers the risk in an already high risk gamble."
Ed and Alphonse both thought back to the different Cadets they met in Trost, they wondered whether they had already met the spies, talked to them, worse still if they were close to them.
"We'll help you capture the enemy spy." Said Ed
"Thank you, if we succeed it will bring us closer to defeating the Titans and one step closer to reclaiming Wall Maria."
And one step closer on the Truth making good on their deal